RS

FRONT PAGE CONTRIBUTOR

Obama takes Argentina’s side in Falklands dispute.

Ed Morrissey and Fausta are both not getting why the President is taking the side of Argentina (thus sharing a podium with that noted beacon of freedom, tolerance, and capitalism known as Venezuela) in its perennial attempts to get the United Kingdom to give up the Falkland Islands. It’s not just that we’re signed on to the OAS declaration demanding that the British negotiate on the question of giving up territory that doesn’t want to be given up; we’re even endorsing Argentina’s blustering insistence on calling the islands by the prior name. All in all, this is a fairly significant change: the question is, why?

The answer is in two parts, both of them easy to grasp: first, President Obama doesn’t particularly like the British. It’s largely a racial thing, alas: the President’s grandfather had personal issues with the British colonial government, and the President has never really forgiven them for it*. Second, and probably more importantly (for Obama, at least**): Argentina will probably offer the President a better deal for the Falklands’ resources. And before you say “What, sheep?” …nope. Oil. It’s confirmed now that there’s oil there.

See? Easy to understand: President Obama hates one side, and the other side will be happy to kiss up to to the President in exchange for the opportunity to get a hold of several billion dollars’ worth of oil revenue. If you have the kind of mind that the President does, it’s practically a no-brainer… which I suppose could also describe my reaction to this, if not in the way that the term is usually used…

*Yes, that’s a fairly immature reason for pursuing a particular foreign policy. Been not following international politics for long, have you? Also: as the date on that link may suggest, I didn’t need Dinesh D’Souza (who I’ve never read) to tell me that the President has an inherited chip on his shoulder when it comes to the British. It was already fairly obvious.

**This is where the President’s basic problem with relating with the rest of us is clearest: he really, truly, honestly does not understand why normal people get disgusted by this kind of petty backstabbing of a key American ally.